Forming nanofibrous ceramic materials can be challenging for a variety of reasons, including that ceramics are not generally amenable to ordinary fiber spinning techniques. The present invention overcomes this obstacle by forming ceramic nanofibers in a two stage process. In the first stage, an ordinary organic nanofiber is spun by any of a variety of conventional means. In the second stage, the ceramic fiber is formed by depositing a sol-gel film on the organic fiber and then degrading or otherwise removing the organic fibrous portion.